Open-Source Geospatial Information and Software Tools for Safeguards Analysts

Interim results from a two-year study at Sandia National Laboratories concerning open source geospatial data and open source software are now available. An easily trainable, interoperable toolset has been designed to systematically extract and store geospatial data from the Internet. Testing is underway to measure the utility of this integrated suite of open-source tools for geospatial data collection, analysis, and visualization. Test subjects have been initially surveyed, trained on the use of the software suite, and follow-up interviews are being conducted. Because special care was taken to integrate the system into the analyst‘s existing workflow, initial reports point toward frequent acceptance. Variability in reported user experience is associated with several key attributes among test subjects. Based on this, we have created a profile of the user/analysts that will most benefit from this software system.